2026 Tour de Romandie Race Preview
Two days on from Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the calendar switches its focus from one- to multi-day racing with the start of the Tour de Romandie. Although overshadowed in historical terms by the Tour de Suisse, Switzerland’s national tour, this six-day race often boasts a stronger field and this is underlined very boldly with a glance down the list of this edition’s 103 starters, all from WorldTour teams apart from the Tudor Pro Continental team that’s Switzerland’s leading professional squad.
The outstanding name on that list is Tadej Pogačar (UAD), who’s never lined up in this event before and will also making his first appearance in a prologue time trial when the race kicks off on Tuesday afternoon. The world champion has won four of his five one-day outings this season and heads an unsurprisingly strong UAE team into a race that he wants to add to his palmarès.
Pogačar’s most likely challengers should be Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe duo Florian Lipowitz (RBH) and Primož Roglič (RBH). The German is, like Pogačar, aiming to switch into stage race mode as part of his preparations for July’s Tour de France. Roglič, meanwhile, is one of three past winners in the field have triumphed here in 2018 and 2019.
The most recent Romandie winner in the peloton is Carlos Rodríguez (IGD), whose success came two years ago. The Spaniard is part of an extremely powerful Ineos Grenadiers team that’s headed by Oscar Onley (IGD) and also features the very in-form Andrew August (IGD).
The third past winner is Nairo Quintana (MOV), who won during his stage racing pomp in 2016. He’s part of a Movistar team that’s headed by Pablo Castrillo (MOV).
The other most obvious threat to Pogačar’s likely dominance comes from Bahrain Victorious, who have co-leaders in the shape of Lenny Martinez (TBV), who returns to racing after being rested for Liège, and Antonio Tiberi (TBV). Like most of the big names here, the Bahrain pair are using Romandie as part of their pre-Tour prep.
Other names to look for include Jørgen Nordhagen (TVL), who leads a young Visma team that will be guided by veteran Steven Kruijswijk (TVL), Paris-Nice podium finisher Georg Steinhauser (EFE), Astana climbing trio Clément Champoussin (XAT), Sergio Higuita (XAT) and Lorenzo Fortunato (XAT), and Jayco-AlUla’s Mauro Schmid (JAY), who’s very much the in-form Swiss rider of the moment.
Apart from Tuesday’s flat prologue, the route varies between hilly and mountainous. Pogačar could turn the profile of any of the first three road stages to his advantage, but the two key days are at the weekend.
Saturday’s stage based on Charmey features two 2nd-category and two 1st-category climbs, the last of the latter topping out 16km from the finish. Sunday’s finale is the only stage with a summit finish, at the top of the 14.3km ascent to Leysin, which is also a 1st-cat test.
Tour de Romandie stage route profiles:
Tour de Romandie stage route maps:
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